A Magnolia's Heart Beats

Steve and I went to see Fireproof tonight.

Wow.

Spoiler alert - stop reading if you haven't seen the movie! Hopefully the text below is light enough that you'll have to highlight it with your mouse to read. If not, I apologize, but I did warn you! Click and drag your mouse to highlight below.

Steve and I were amazed at the strength and wisdom of Caleb's (Kirk Cameron) father and mother, their encouragement, particularly that of his father, never to give up on your marriage.

Steve and I have hit some pretty rocky spots in our marriage before and all three times we were encouraged by both sets of parents to get out while the getting was good. This was no surprise, coming from my parents. My Mom stayed in her marriage to Daddy for nearly 35 years. They separated 3 times when I was growing up, once when I was in 5th grade, once in 8th, and once when I was a senior in high school. My Dad was of the opinion that if I left him, it needed to be for good and he would provide for me financially if I did. Steve and I separated 3 times, divorcing one of those times. God restored our marriage and we re-married. We were divorced less than a year and don't count it in our years of marriage. We've been married 17 years in the eyes of God and 17 years in ours as well.

Steve's parents have had a rock solid marriage for over 40 years, pushing 50, I would guess. They also encouraged our separations and divorce.

Separation and divorce are no longer in our vocabulary and haven't beeen since we remarried in 2003.

So now you know more about us. But this was not about that.

Date night was awesome! Fireproof is an excellent movie and I hope if you haven't seen it that you'll see it soon. It was very well made and the scenery was beautiful. Set in Albany, GA, the southern accents were great, and I could count the number of times they said "ya'll" on one hand, which is about 10 hands less than I say it in a day myself. Mississippi girl here!